The Only Exception
by JennaBennett
Summary: There are a lot of reasons to call off her wedding, but Pam only thinks about one. A somewhat AU version of how that conversation takes shapes, incorporating events from "The Merger," "Cocktails," and "The Negotiation."


"There are a lot of reasons to call off the wedding," falls from her lips, part plea, part promise. Roy stars at her slack jawed from the other end of the weathered sofa. She tugs at a frayed thread seeping from the arm at her end and rubs it into a tiny ball of twine between her fingers. Another decision made, she's buying a new sofa. Roy can keep this one. He can keep it all. For the first time - that she admits to herself - in almost a decade she wants something new.

"Pammy," breaks from his gaping mouth.

So, she lists them.

She tells him all the reasons, apart from the only one she really cares about. The only one that actually called her to action. She talks about the chemistry fading, and that they don't want the same things out of life, and that he doesn't seem to notice her anymore and that she doesn't really care and she should. She doesn't tell him that somewhere in her deepest, darkest secrets she's been rehearsing this conversation for years. As the tears slip from his eyes she feels the cage that's been clasping at her heart begin to rattle. She adds that they don't push each other towards greater things as the lock on her heart-cage springs open and she thinks about finding an art class to sign up for.

She presses the engagement ring that's tethered her to this place back into his palm as he sobs. The heart-cage shatters and falls from her chest. In that second, she swears she can feel her heart beat stronger and steadier than it has in years.

A week later and she's peering into a stranger's life. She has an apartment. It's a little worn, the paint flakes in places and it's perfect. She feels like they match. Maybe a little worse for wear, but still plenty of potential. She's finalizing buying a car, a cute royal blue Yaris that makes her feel like a teenager again - that sense of getting your license and independence all in the same second. She starts an art class next week and it's everything. Well, almost everything. She won't let herself stare at his desk. She won't tell herself that she's doing it all for him. She thinks about all the reasons she told Roy. They were good reasons to call off the wedding. They were enough.

For years now, the office has been her happy place and home has contained that muted sorrow she refuses to confront. How the times have changed. She loves her new home. She dwells on that. Well, she tries.

A few weeks after finding her feet she realizes the problem with the reasons she gave Roy. Everyday he arrives in the office, plates in hand. "Chicken or fish?" and a tired smile. Today, as he trails her into the break room, his plate in hand it hits her - he thinks he can fix the reasons. He's been trying. He's really been trying, and look if the reasons she gave were all the reasons maybe this would work. If that were the whole truth, maybe he really could win her back with his muted attempts at apology?

Oh god.

Of course the only reason that matters to her is the only reason that's going to matter to him too.

Everything else is surmountable. It's her fault for not giving him the real dealbreaker. After all, she had a lot of reasons to call off her marriage, but she only did it for one. And it's the only one she hasn't told him - this reformed Roy, a softer version that sits beside her each day with pleading eyes and a quiet patience she's never known him to possess.

It's a mess.

There's a part of her that is protecting herself. She can hear Angela hissing hussy at her for leaving her long term fiancé for another man. There's another part of her that is protecting Jim which is ridiculous given that it's so high school and Jim doesn't go here anymore. The Roy beside her now is placid, the only thing he's fighting is his own inadequacies, but she can only imagine what he'll become if she gives him a target to channel his hurt towards.

She bites her tongue for one more day. She feels like she's stringing Roy along by not providing him with her insurmountable reason.

She makes it until that evening. It's been eating at her all day since the realization hit her. The warehouse guys have invited her coworkers to Poor Richards and she tags along. Roy's eyes flare with hope as she seats herself beside him at the bar. The sparks turn to fiery rage as the words tumble out - "there were a lot of reasons to call off our wedding, but I kissed Jim and -" glass shatters along with Roy's hope. It's done. They're done.

She backs away and feels Kevin placing himself between her and Roy and her heart swells. Oscar escorts her to her car and the darkness that has been eclipsing the office lately lifts. Her apartment greats her as she seizes control of her life once again.

Naturally, Michael throws her world into disarray the very next day. Their branch is closing. She's going to lose her eclectic family just after she learned to love them again. Her mourning process is interrupted by Jan who announces that Stamford is closing. Scranton will absorb the Stamford branch and she feels like she can see in color for the first time in months. Her first thought is Jim and her second thought is Jim. Her next thought, keeping in the same vein is that Roy is going to kill Jim.

She stops measuring time in hours and days and starts measuring it by the butterflies filling her stomach as the moments until Jim's return painstakingly pass by. She can feel 37 completely distinguishable sets of little wings on the morning of the merger. The number bumps up each time the door opens. Finally a familiar mop of brown hair emerges and she's around her desk and in his arms before she has time to count the flutters bursting to life inside her. "Hi, I'm Jim. I'm new here," he emits brightly. Her butterfly collection chirps with joy.

"Oh my god. It's really you!" she beams.

"I was doing a little joke there, about how we'd never met." She knows. But she doesn't care.

By the end of the day she has whiplash. The way he held her as she launched into his arms that morning had felt like everything, but the way he treats her throughout the day leaves her confused. He's hot and cold with her and it aches. Her sweet little butterflies have turned to ash in the pit of her stomach. Their delicate wings have been rubbed between cruel human fingers and it's smudged out their ability to fly. That far too pretty girl, Karen, from Stamford hands Jim gum and Pam feels another butterfly slip to the floor. It's enough to distract Pam from the fear lingering in the back of her mind about how Roy will react to Jim's return. In fact, it's not until she's in the parking lot, hearing Jim send her entire world spiraling once again that she remembers Roy. Jim's, "I've kind of started seeing someone," is echoing through her mind shattering all her illusions of happy endings. She's attempting something hollow about how they'll always be friends, but she's really wondering if she can make it the seven paces to her car before she starts sobbing in earnest. It only when she tries to draw in a shaky breath without crying that she hears it - a dull roar is pushing into her awareness. Roy materializes at her side. She can feel the anger radiating from his bulky form. She tries to maneuver herself between him and Jim, but he's pushing her to the side.

"Halpert!" he growls as he releases his tightly wound fist. It collides with a heavy thud into the side of Jim's face. The piercing crack springs Pam to life, her hand closing on the weathered can of pepper spray in the bottom of her purse. It isn't until after she sprays it into Roy's seething face that she considers the irony that he had purchased it for her.

Jim is clasping his face between his hands, eyes wide and wild as he surveys her. Roy howls and curses, turning away to spit on the asphalt as he drops to his knees. Pam is at a loss. She doesn't know where she stands with Jim after that whole I'm-seeing-someone business that happened all of twenty-nine seconds ago. She did tell him that they were still friends, even though it felt as if she was walking over coal to spit it out. Still, that's what she decides to go with, always the friend. She steps towards him, gently tugging his arm away from his face to take a look at the bruise rapidly forming on his cheek. She keeps tugging and pulls him forward, steering him back towards the building. He allows himself to be pulled along without comment.

Evidently, Hank the security guard has witnessed some of this exchange from his post because they cross paths with him at the door as he approaches the still disoriented Roy. Pam pulls Jim into the elevator and they rise in silence. She continues to lead him, stopping only at the break room. She pushes him gently into a chair and removes a handful of ice from the freezer, carefully wrapping it in a tea towel and pressing it to his face. He groans. "Sorry," she murmurs, a puff of her warm breath brushing across his iced skin. His hand rises to hold hers in place, covering the ice. She stills immediately, her eyes locking with his, bottom lip clasped between her teeth in a nervous habit that never fails to make his heart skip a beat.

"Sorry," she repeats gently and he knows that she means for Roy, the punch and his aching cheek.

He parts his lips and, "why?" slips out. Instead of an answer he receives a shake of her head and a silent tear tracking down her face. He reaches out and brushes it away. The dam breaks and he is at a loss how to chase away the cascade of tears raining down her cheeks. She sniffles and he produces a yellowed handkerchief from his pocket. "It's Dwight's," he shrugs by way of explanation. "Don't ask." That's all it takes for the worst to pass. Her lips curve upwards and a few more tears fall. She wipes them away with Dwight's handkerchief and a new sense of resolve.

"When I ended things with Roy," she begins, clearing her throat as Jim nods encouragingly. "There were a lot of reasons to call off the wedding." Jim doesn't need to be told that twice. He bites the inside of his injured cheek to hold back his many responses and grimaces. "I told him all those reasons," she pauses. "Except for one," it's part plea, part promise and she's come full circle. Jim finger moves without his permission, brushing along her jaw, igniting fire in its wake. She wills herself to be brave and continue. "He was trying to fix it, us. I realized I had to tell him the whole truth, that the only reason that really mattered was you." The ice slips to the floor as both Jim's hands cradle her face.

"Pam..."

"Jim. I'm in lov - " and it's casino night all over again, but so much better. His lips are pressed to hers, but this time she doesn't hesitate. She opens her mouth to him and he breathes life back into her, resurrecting her butterflies.


End file.
